Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire

Play, Black Girl, play! (For the Oakland Public Conservatory of Music’s girls)
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
18 Mar 2026
🖨️ Print Article
Nina Simone

“The music is the magic through a raging storm …” 

— Abbey Lincoln

Play, Black Girl, play —
Play your piano, now
Come, now, let Sister-
Master show you how

Play, Black Girl, play —
Play your hot saxophone
On shoulders of giants
You don’t stand alone …


© 2026. Raymond Nat Turner, The Town Crier. All Rights Reserved.

Raymond Nat Turner is a NYC poet, BAR's Poet-in-Residence, and founder/co-leader of the jazz-poetry ensemble UpSurge!NYC. You can vote for his work at GoFundMe and PayPal.

Music
Black children
culture
Oakland
Black Women

Do you need and appreciate Black Agenda Report articles? Please click on the DONATE icon, and help us out, if you can.


Related Stories

Photo: Kevin W. Thorbourne
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
Bird, strings, Big Chief: 100: Harlem (For Charlie Parker/Donald Harrison/Harlem Symphony Orchestra)
08 September 2021
Bird, strings, Big Chief: 100: Harlem (For Charlie Parker/Donald Harrison/Harlem Symphony Orchestra)  
BAR Book Forum: Symposium on Sarah Haley’s "No Mercy Here"
Marisa Fuentes
BAR Book Forum: Symposium on Sarah Haley’s "No Mercy Here"
06 May 2020
This is a book about the ideological construction of black women as “non-human” and exploitable for capitalist profit in the making of the New Sout

More Stories


  • COP 29
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    COP29 and Climate Agreement Failure
    22 Nov 2024
    Anthony Rogers-Wright provides his analysis of the latest United Nations climate change summit, COP29, now being held in Baku, Azerbaijan.
  • Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    Biden Leaves Office But Risks War with Russia
    20 Nov 2024
    Democrats are in a collective state of panic because Donald Trump is returning to the presidency. But Joe Biden is escalating conflict in the Ukraine proxy war against Russia and endangering the…
  • Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    ESSAY: Revolution and the Negro, CLR James, 1939
    20 Nov 2024
    Haiti’s Battle of Vertières reminds us that resistance is not futile, that victory will come.
  • Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    It’s not you, it’s CAPITALISM
    20 Nov 2024
    Malaika Jabali’s book explains our toxic relationship with capitalism and says it’s time to break up.
  • Abayomi Azikiwe, Black Agenda Report Contributor
    Imperialism and the Destabilization of the Alliance of Sahel States
    20 Nov 2024
    Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger remain targets of the western capitalist mining firms and their state sponsors.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us